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MARCH 10TH, 2019: FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT

MARCH 10TH, 2019: FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT

Moses spoke to the people, saying:"The priest shall receive the basket from youand shall set it in front of the altar of the LORD, your God.Then you shall declare before the Lord, your God,'My father was a wandering Arameanwho went down to Egypt with a small householdand lived there as an alien.But there he became a nationgreat, strong, and numerous.When the Egyptians maltreated and oppressed us,imposing hard labor upon us,we cried to the LORD, the God of our fathers,and he heard our cryand saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.He brought us out of Egyptwith his strong hand and outstretched arm,with terrifying power, with signs and wonders;and bringing us into this country,he gave us this land flowing with milk and honey.Therefore, I have now brought you the firstfruitsof the products of the soilwhich you, O LORD, have given me.'And having set them before the Lord, your God,you shall bow down in his presence."

Brothers and sisters:What does Scripture say?The word is near you,in your mouth and in your heart—that is, the word of faith that we preach—,for, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lordand believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,you will be saved.For one believes with the heart and so is justified,and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.For the Scripture says,No one who believes in him will be put to shame.For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek;the same Lord is Lord of all,enriching all who call upon him.For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordanand was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days,to be tempted by the devil.He ate nothing during those days,and when they were over he was hungry.The devil said to him,"If you are the Son of God,command this stone to become bread."Jesus answered him,"It is written, One does not live on bread alone."Then he took him up and showed himall the kingdoms of the world in a single instant.The devil said to him,"I shall give to you all this power and glory;for it has been handed over to me,and I may give it to whomever I wish.All this will be yours, if you worship me."Jesus said to him in reply,"It is written:You shall worship the Lord, your God,and him alone shall you serve."Then he led him to Jerusalem,made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him,"If you are the Son of God,throw yourself down from here, for it is written:He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,and:With their hands they will support you,lest you dash your foot against a stone."Jesus said to him in reply,"It also says,You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test."When the devil had finished every temptation,he departed from him for a time.

Long before Lent became a dreaded period of penance it was simply a time for reflection. It consisted of a few weeks set aside every year for Christians to ponder the implications of actually being other Christs. Though the local church’s catechumens originally used these days to prepare for their Holy Saturday baptisms, the rest of the community couldn’t help but think back to their own experiences of dying and rising with Christ. Often when presiding at weddings, for a second or two I take my eyes off the couple exchanging their vows and glance at some of the people in the church who’ve already made that commitment, imagining what’s going on in their minds. I take for granted they have different perspectives on those words than the pair uttering them for the first time.

Just so, the already baptized will think about these Lenten preparations from a different perspective than those anxiously awaiting this specific Easter. These “old timers” have already been through the mill; they know where the bodies have been buried, though it might have taken years to discover them. Nothing can replace their years of experienced reflecting

As far as we can tell, no one sat down on the original Easter Sunday night, took stylus in hand and started to write the Christian Scriptures. It was at least 20 years before Paul, our initial Christian author, penned his first letter to the Thessalonians, our earliest Christian writing. All our authors had time to “think things over.” No gospel or letter was composed cold turkey. The various communities’ experiences of living their faith affected the way their sacred authors wrote about that faith.

This biblical process didn’t begin with the Christian Scriptures; it was already at work centuries before during the composition of the Hebrew Scriptures. For instance, the author of Deuteronomy, along with his community, had encountered Yahweh present and working among the Chosen People for dozens of generations before the classic profession of faith took the form which is at the heart of today’s Deuteronomy passage. It took the Israelites hundreds of years to understand what Yahweh had accomplished for Jacob, the “wandering Aramean,” and his family. Only gradually, for instance, did they begin to appreciate this specific ritual was talking about “us” and not “them.” They were experiencing some of the same things their ancestors had experienced.

In the same way, it took Paul a long time before he was able to click off the essentials of faith which he mentions in today’s second reading. The Apostle didn’t come to all those insights immediately after his Damascus Road conversion. Lots of reflection went into that list. I wonder how frustrated his personal secretary must have been taking his dictation. How often did he say, “Let’s do that line again?”

Most interesting are the Lucan temptations the gospel Jesus endures while fasting in the wilderness. The earliest evangelist, Mark, only says Jesus was tempted. He doesn’t provide a list of them. The well-known three only appear a generation later in the collection of sayings we know as the “Q,” where both Matthew and Luke find them.

This seems to tell us the early Christian community didn’t come up with these specific three until they reflected for at least a decade on the temptations the church was experiencing years after the historical Jesus’ death and resurrection. Seems these specific sins didn’t become evident until after that reflection.

If we actually spend the next seven weeks not in penance, but in reflecting, as the early Christians did, on the implications of being another Christ, I wonder what specific new sins we might come up with. Only recently, for example, have I learned about the sin of clericalism. Could there be others?

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